Custom Turntable

Magnavox Micromatic Turntable – You spin right round baby right….

Status: Complete

This project started out with a craigslist post about a free mid 60’s stereo console. I picked it up and found it was in a fairly dilapidated state. The finish looked like it was melting off and the turntable was not working. The radio and amplifier was in somewhat a usable state. It looked like the console below.

Well I ripped it apart and and rebuilt the turntable and got it working again. Looking at the serial number I dated it to 1967.

I could not find a replacement cartridge to replace the worn out one so I decided to build a new tone arm that would allow me to mount the standard half inch mount cartridges.

The arm is made out of aluminum with stainless steel hardware. The spring on the arm makes sure the arm does not flip backwards when the record player changes records. It only applies tension when the arm is in the up position.

The Magnavox Micromatic is a 4 speed (16,33,45,78) changer model. You can stack 7 records at once (them being all the same speed of course) on the spindle. I mounted it on a solid African Cherry case and rewired it so it could operate without the amplifier it came with. The whole thing got repainted black and the rubber mat was replaced with a cork mat.